Three baboons recaptured after escaping from Sydney hospital, 'no danger' to public Police have confirmed three baboons escaped from a truck at an animal research facility at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney's inner west — but have now been captured. ... The baboons reportedly broke free from a truck after being transported from a NSW colony to the hospital, Health Minister Brad Hazzard confirmed. Mr Hazzard said the incident involved a 15-year-old male baboon accompanied by two females who were "there to keep him calm because tomorrow he was due for a vasectomy". ... It is believed the animals were from the NSW National Health and Medical Research Council baboon colony in Wallacia, western Sydney. Animal Justice Party MP Emma Hurst said the baboons were "medical experimentation survivors" who had made an "escape attempt". ... read more
in doing a bit of googling about this story, I discovered some numbers of primates imported for research into Australia which I found interesting - between 2000 and 2015 Australia had imported: 331 pig tailed macaques from Indonesia 250 crab-eating macaques from Indonesia 71 owl monkeys from the United States 37 marmosets from France. Its a shame none of these have been able to be rehomed or exhibited in zoos. Its also interesting that zoos such as the NZ zoos that ended up with only males, couldn't or didn't want to source additional females from these facilities. And the male in this story that was to be vasectomised, apparently didn't have the procedure in the end and was sent back to the colony last night.
Runaway Sydney baboon gets the snip A male baboon that was on his way to a vasectomy when he and his two female companions escaped a Sydney hospital has undergone the big snip. The 15-year-old male baboon and his two female “troops” on Tuesday evening escaped after a lock failed on the truck or crate transporting them at a Royal Prince Alfred Hospital research facility in Camperdown. NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the male primate was due for a vasectomy, while his two female companions were there for support. The trio was seen running around a car park on RPA hospital grounds. The baboons were contained by police and medical experts before handlers from Taronga Zoo tranquillised them. ...
If three baboons were ever to escape amongst the human [sensu lato] population of Wigan, it would be like trying to find 3 needles in a haystack...
Probably some strange laws demand a special oversight, and given the few lab primates, a human clinic is the only place which can provide it. It gets even weirder when lab mice are given expensive medical treatment for their welfare, and in the same building there is poisoned bait for regular mice. They should hire some baboons.
